Asian Keynote Speakers

Best known as the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad —the #1 personal finance book of all time—Robert Kiyosaki has challenged and changed the way tens of millions of people around the world think about money. He is an entrepreneur, educator, and investor who believes the world needs more entrepreneurs. With perspectives on money and investing that often contradict conventional wisdom, Robert has earned an international reputation for straight talk, irreverence, and courage and has become a passionate and outspoken advocate for financial education.

Fee Range: $56,000–$100,000
Travels From: AZ

Award-winning journalist, Lisa Ling is the host of This is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN. Ling was formerly the executive producer and host of Our America on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). In the first two seasons, she embedded in a Midwest town ravaged by an onslaught of heroin and got exclusive access inside an anti-gay religious movement. She also witnessed the manifestation of PTSD in returning veterans or war and went undercover to investigate the under-age sex trafficking of minors in the nation's capital.

Fee Range: Inquire
Travels From: CA

Vijay Govindarajan, known as VG, is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of Int'l Business at the Tuck School and founding director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership. He is also the faculty co-director for Global Leadership 2020, Tuck's executive education program that focuses on global management. VG's area of expertise is strategy, with particular emphasis on strategic innovation, industry transformation, and global strategy and organization. VG works with CEOs and top management teams in Global Fortune 500 firms to discuss, challenge, and escalate their thinking about strategy. VG received his doctorate from the Harvard Business School and was awarded the Robert Bowne Prize for the best thesis proposal. He also received his MBA with distinction from the Harvard Business School where he was included in the Dean's Honor List. He has published eight books, including Reverse Innovation in Health Care How to Make Value-Based Delivery Work.

Fee Range: Inquire
Travels From: NH

Fee Range: $30,000–$50,000
Travels From: FL

Fee Range: $25,000–$44,000
Travels From: NY

Jeffrey Ma was a member of the MIT Blackjack Team in the mid-1990s. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. He attended MIT where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1994. He was the basis for the main character of the book Bringing Down the House and the film 21.

Fee Range: $15,000–$30,000
Travels From: CA

Fee Range: $17,500–$28,000
Travels From: CA

Fee Range: $20,000–$38,500
Travels From: CA

Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to inspire more non-obvious thinking in the world. He is the 3-time Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of eight books and is widely considered one of the most entertaining and original speakers on trends, innovation and marketing in the world. Rohit has been invited to deliver sold-out keynotes and workshops in 32 countries around the world to change the way teams and leaders think at the World Bank, NASA, Intel, LinkedIn, MetLife, Under Armour, Univision, Disney and hundreds of other well-known organizations. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur and founding two companies, he previously spent 15 years as a marketing strategist at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett where he advised global brands on marketing and storytelling strategy. Outside his speaking and consulting, Rohit has taught persuasive speaking and global marketing as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, is frequently quoted in the global media and writes a monthly column on trends for GQ magazine in Brazil. Rohit lives in the Washington DC area with his wife and is a proud dad of two boys. He loves the Olympics (he’s been to five!) and actively hates cauliflower.

Fee Range: $20,000–$35,000
Travels From: DC

Neil is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books and journals which have sold millions of copies including The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, and The Book of Awesome. After receiving his MBA from Harvard, Neil spent a decade as Director of Leadership inside Walmart, the world’s largest company. He is one of the most popular TED speakers of all time and his work has been featured by CNN, BBC, and Oprah Winfrey..

Fee Range: $30,000–$50,000
Travels From: Intl

As a young athlete, Ibtihaj struggled with the restrictions wearing a hijab imposed on the requisite sport uniforms, until she discovered fencing, where she finally felt she could be true to herself. She went on to attend Duke University, where she was a three-time All-American and the 2005 Junior Olympic Champion. A member of the U.S. National Fencing Team, Ibtihaj jousted her way into the history books at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro wearing her hijab, ultimately helping the women’s fencing team earn the bronze medal. As a stereotype-busting trailblazer and inspirational role model, she is an official sports ambassador, serving on the State Department’s Empowering Women and Girls Through Sport Initiative and talking with young women around the world about the importance of sports and education. Drawing from her triumphant journey and unwavering commitment to her authentic self, Ibtihaj inspires others to overcome any obstacle and pave their own unique path to success.

Fee Range: $18,750–$32,000
Travels From: CA

Called “Silicon Valley’s most provocative voice” for his ideas on technology trends, globalization, U.S. competitiveness and the future, Vivek Wadhwa’s work puts him at the heart of where innovations—technological and otherwise—are being developed that will change the very way that we work and live.

Fee Range: $25,000–$35,000
Travels From: CA

Reshma Saujani is the Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, the international nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in technology and change the image of what a computer programmer looks like and does.

Fee Range: $50,000–$94,000
Travels From: NY

Fee Range: $40,000–$95,000
Travels From: CA

Ram Charan is the co-author of bestsellers Execution and Confronting Reality and the author of What the CEO Wants You to Know, and 10 other books including his most recent, The Attacker's Advantage: Turning Uncertainty Into Breakthrough Opportunities (2015). A noted expert on business strategy, execution, building a high-performance organization, 21st century leadership, corporate boards and succession, he has worked with leaders of some of the world's most successful companies. Ram is known for his practical, real world perspective. He is a favorite among executive educators. He won the Bell Ringer best teacher award at GE's Crotonville Institute and the Best Teacher Award at Wharton and Northwestern. he is known for cutting through the complexity of running a business in today’s fast changing environment to uncover the core business problem. His real-world solutions, shared with millions through his books and articles in top business publications, have been praised for being practical, relevant and highly actionable.

Fee Range: $50,000–$50,000
Travels From: TX

Ms. Al-Suwaij is the co-founder and Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress (AIC), a nonprofit established in the wake of the September 11 attacks to build interfaith understanding; mobilize a moderate voice in the American Muslim community; and promote civil rights in the Muslim world. Al-Suwaij’s personal mission is to promote a positive Muslim-American voice that strengthens interfaith relations and addresses the many challenges in the Muslim world. She has developed classroom curricula; works with the Anti-Defamation League; and serves on Connecticut’s Hate Crimes Advisory Board. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Hartford Courant. Al-Suwaij has been interviewed on NPR, CNN, Fox, and Al-Jazeera. She has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, and many other campuses. She spoke alongside George Clooney at a massive April 2006 rally to Save Darfur in Washington, DC.

Fee Range: $6,000–$8,000
Travels From: DC

Mehrsa Baradaran writes about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her scholarship includes the books How the Other Half Banks and The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, both published by the Harvard University Press. Mehrsa Baradaran is a professor of law at UCI Law. Previously, she was the Robert Cotten Alston Chair in Corporate Law and Associate Dean for strategic initiatives with a focus on diversity and inclusion efforts and national and international faculty scholarship recognition at the University of Georgia School of Law. Baradaran and her books have received significant national and international media coverage and have been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Slate and American Banker; National Public Radio’s Marketplace, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and as part of TEDxUGA. She has advised U.S. Senators and Congressmen on policy, testified before the U.S. Congress, and spoken at national and international forums like the U.S. Treasury and the World Bank.

Fee Range: $14,000–$20,000
Travels From: CA

Fee Range: $6,000–$13,000
Travels From: MD

• Eva Chen is the head of fashion partnerships at Instagram, where she has launched a number of fashion and e-commerce features including shopping directly from influencers' feeds and the Instagram Shop account. • She is the New York Times-bestselling author of I Am Golden, A Is for Awesome, 3 2 1 Awesome!, Roxy, the Last Unisaurus Rex, and more. • Previously the editor-in-chief of Lucky, Eva has also written for ELLE, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Vogue China, the New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. • Eva is a first-generation Chinese-American and attributes her early love of fashion to her mother's influence.

Fee Range: $25,000–$63,000
Travels From: NY

Marita Cheng AM, inducted as the youngest Member of the Order of Australia in 2019, named by Forbes as one of the World's Top 50 Women In Tech 2018, Forbes 30 Under 30 2016, and 2012 Young Australian of the Year, is a technology entrepreneur and women in technology advocate. Marita Cheng is the founder and CEO of Aubot (formerly called 2Mar Robotics), which makes a telepresence robot, Teleport, for kids with cancer in hospital to attend school, people with a disability to attend work and to monitor and socialize with elderly people.

Fee Range: $10,000–$20,000
Travels From: CA

Fee Range: $7,000–$25,000
Travels From: NY

Jimmy is a leading storyteller of his generation and a world-class professional mountain athlete. A National Geographic photographer, Academy Award–winning director, and New York Times bestselling author, he’s equally known for his groundbreaking climbing, skiing, and filmmaking — from Free Solo to Nyad.

Fee Range: $50,000–$110,000
Travels From: WY

An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Chin is a renowned cancer genomic scientist and a leader in the application of analytical technologies, AI/ML, and big data in medicine. Her groundbreaking work synthesizing terabyte-scale datasets in genomics and oncology research has opened new frontiers in digital medicine. Dr. Chin founded Apricity Health, a next-generation precision medicine company to harness patient data and clinical expertise to develop better drugs and deliver better care for cancer patients.

Fee Range: $8,000–$15,000
Travels From: TX

Timothy Chou has had a career spanning academia, successful startups and large corporations. He was one of only six people to ever hold the President title at Oracle. As President of Oracle On Demand, he grew the cloud business from it's very beginning. Today he serves on the Board of Directors of Blackbaud and Teradata. Recently he became the Chairman of the Alchemist Accelerator focusing on industrial IoT and has invested in a select group of young companies all focused in cloud computing, blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence. He taught introductory computer architecture for fifteen years at Stanford University and then launched Stanford's first course on cloud computing.

Fee Range: $25,000–$40,000
Travels From: CA